>>If Christopher Nolan’s coming adaptation of the Odyssey happens to do well enough to get Hollywood back on its feet,
A typical laconic reply works here: "If"
A typical laconic reply works here: "If"
I dont care about the casting.
But the costumes look like ass (One of the extras was saying he had fit into the same armor for a low budget sword and sandal film), they are using a viking longboat as a greek ship (have already seen half a dozen experts spitting chips over the difference in boat design). I just cant bring myself to care about the film.
"Oh its a fantasy film" its set in a historical time period, I wouldnt watch a WW2 Zombie movie if the nazi zombies were wearing viking armor driving an Abrams tank either.
WW2 Zombie movie with Nazis in Viking armors and random tanks sounds so much more _fun_ than a "historically acurate Nazi Zombie" movie!
I also more often enjoy films which sit between "100% realistic/accurate" and "anything goes" than either extreme itself. 100% realistic/accurate and it tends to already be known unless it's relatively bland. 100% anything goes and it can still be good but there is a high risk it ends up feeling like every other "anything goes" movie of the same topic. In between you can often get the best of both worlds - something new, but still unique.
I think that Nolan sells himself (The online worship can hardly all be organic) as an authentic, technical director interested in accurate physical props.
When mostly what he does is potter about and destroy sound design.
I agree no one is going to be 100% accurate and accuracy isnt always desirable. But an attempt? When thats the guys reputation? Doesnt feel like too much to ask for.
I'm not a huge Nolan-discourse-insider, but that seems like a pretty bizarre reputation to have for someone who's famous for directing three Batman movies, Inception, Interstellar and Tenet?
Is this reputation just because of Oppenheimer?
I haven't seen Dunkirk (and I'm not a WWII buff so couldn't tell if they used right planes/boats/guns/uniforms/whatever even if I tried), but even a short blurb on Wikipedia talks about a "balance historical accuracy with aesthetics that would favour the film stock".
They could have used some arbitrary CGI…but no, they wanted it accurate according to science.
Sadly its a lot of "Filmbros first serious scifi movie" and thats something you cant disentangle, its love its not rational.
Not entirely without overlap, but pretty distinct.
>I think that Nolan sells himself (The online worship can hardly all be organic) as an authentic, technical director interested in accurate physical props.
I just wanted to give an example of such accurate physics props, that this is not only due to Oppenheimer.
This was not about the historic accuracy.
The first batman movie was a paint by numbers reimplementation of The Shadow (1997). You can find comparisons online, nearly shot by shot and most of the same plot beats. The second and third went sort of back towards a very mechanical batman representation that reminded me of the planned low budget Iron Man movie where he wouldn't have had the ability to fly. Just stomping around punching badguys like a Power Rangers extra. The new Bat Mobile seems to inspire some of this reputation
>Inception
Inceptions pretty flat for a film about dreams.
>Interstellar
Neuro-Diverse level of detail until the bits with space magic at the end.
>Tenet
I couldnt sit through 10 minutes of it. Its like the antifilm. It didnt want me to observe it otherwise it wouldnt have emitted such a piercing screeching noise.
>Dunkirk
He has an old period watch, and he recorded the ticking. He overlays the ticking constantly. Also he tells the story out of sequence for some reason. But theres lots of practical effects if you include the stupid watch.
>Oppenheimer
Between tenet hating me on a physical level, and the perfectly servicable fat man and little boy film from the 70s I just havent seen it to comment.
After the film, I asked if he'd turned down the popcorn for professional reasons. He said, "No, I just didn't feel like popcorn."
At least they bothered to CGI out the stirrups, but it's incredibly obvious from how he's sitting on the horse in the trailer.
And the extra you describe, where does he appear on screen? Front and centre, or in the fourth rank behind the people in better costumes?
And the longboat, does it appear on screen in its original form, or with additions to make it look more period accurate?
Either “best attempt at historical accuracy” (although that would have been difficult given the sparse record), or “true to Homer’s anachronistic story” would have been reasonable ways to go. Sounds like they picked neither, though…
Thats fine but my ultimate preference would be fully period.
Theres an old painting of jesus getting stabbed by Longinus kicking around, and Longinus and the other romans are wearing modern (at the time of painting) Italian plate harness with sallet helms.
The reason we dont depict romans like this painting, or wearing modern army fatigues and carrying rifles, is that we know better.
>And the extra you describe, where does he appear on screen? Front and centre, or in the fourth rank behind the people in better costumes?
The gist here is that most of the costumes are rentals with a few exceptions. The extra himself is barely on screen, but he is one of apparently a large number of people in the same outfit. YMMV.
The costumes they have created for the film are no better in accuracy, the batmanesque helmet for Agamemnon has been thoroughly ridiculed online and I wont bother going over it again here.
>And the longboat, does it appear on screen in its original form, or with additions to make it look more period accurate?
They took the dragon head prow down at least. Not much more than that has been done.
Dumbed down far more than required for short movie transition of any topic. But I guess they know their US audience, their level of knowledge and care for authenticity better than me.
OK, so you didn't watch Kung Fury?
https://www.warhistoryonline.com/world-war-ii/the-battle-of-...
Also A Bridge too Far had this issue too.